Friday, April 30, 2004

Reconsidering the priorities.

Few weeks ago, I wasn’t quiet sure of the urgent need for the sovereignty handover in the planned date of June the 30th. What gave me such belief were the events we experienced since the great changes that happened in Iraq, because what happened was a dramatic change that needed to be followed by a revolution on the old concepts that dominated for decades, and dealing with theses changes will be accompanied by a lot of obstacles (technical and psychological) that might seriously effect the process of building the new Iraq; this is a fear that became stronger after seeing the modest performance of the Iraqi leadership during the past events. Add to this that it’s difficult for the people to get used to the changes in this short time space.
Here I stress that the positive nature of the change doesn’t necessarily make it acceptable for the people, and that it’s very important to allow the sufficient time space for the change to be rooted in the minds of the people in a way that enable them to see the great pluses the media try to overlook. This will not happen easily without the birth of the new Iraqi citizen who has the faith in the good results in the future and who is free from the paranoia that inhabited the minds of Iraqis and Arabs in general. Only such Iraqis will be ready to go through this hard period and bear the necessary sacrifices.

Unfortunately, sometimes the events enforce a situation against our plans. We spend tens of millions of dollars to create something good and then comes one picture from the media to blow the whole project up and the media win and become the loud voice that people listen to, and it seems that all the millions that were spent were almost mute and their voice couldn’t reach the ears of the crowds. After what happened recently and the attempts made by some outlaws to counter act the change by gun power, I started to have more inclination to see the sovereignty hand over take place according to the planned schedule. This-in my opinion-will achieve many objectives that serve our ambitions for the bright future. More important, it will support the credibility of the coalition countries regarding one of the most important promises given for the sake of the change. And this will be a shock for those (who use their claims that the US in not honest in her promises as the backbone of their media assault). After that, this propaganda machine that depends strongly on the theory of “occupation” and the “legitimacy of resistance” in its war against the people of Iraq in particular and against freedom in general will collapse, and then all they have will be the other claim that the new government in Iraq will be definitely a puppet for the CIA or the Pentagon and this claim is a weak one that won’t have attentive listeners, especially in the civilized world.
The other point -which bears no less importance than the previous one- is that the international terrorism that bet a lot on the failure of the project in Iraq will find that it has lost a great deal of its war because the terrorists have invested lots of money and a lot of personnel for this purpose but all that couldn’t accomplish the task of hindering the change, on the contrary, it speeded things up. Therefore, terrorism- or better say those who finance it-should look for another field for its war or to continue here but with half its previous determination. Here where I agree with the people who say that perception is more important than facts, at least sometimes.
Yes, we’re still looking for something much better than this but the hand over of sovereignty will be a step forward, surely will facilitate future wider steps.